ArMoRothair wrote:If you use your indicator in a vehicle it means "I would like to turn", it is then up to you to make sure your way is clear; and if you have to wait a long time that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Presumably, when you are performing a right hand turn and have waited for a gap in the oncoming traffic you then continue to wait till all the queue of traffic that has built up behind you uses that gap to overtake you. Or does this novel interpretation of the highway code where overtaking vehicles have priority over those in front and can overtake on whichever side they please only apply when it is cyclists doing the overtaking?

No, it only applies where the vehicles coming from behind occupy a marked, separate lane. It is crossing white lines into an occupied lane that is wrong. Whether it is occupied by bikes or motor vehicles is immaterial.

DO NOT overtake where you might come into conflict with other road users. For example

approaching or at a road junction on either side of the road...where traffic is queuing at junctions...when a road user is indicating right, even if you believe the signal should have been cancelled...

We can chuck individual rules back and forth at each other, but the HC is not always black and white. Often, you need to consider several rules and, if you do so, then either party has an opportunity to avoid an accident, even if it would have been held to have been principally the fault of the other.

I did say that:

drossall wrote:Cyclists arriving after the lights go green would be unwise to dash up the side of left-turning vehicles, even though those vehicles should cede priority before crossing the cyclists' lane, just as someone approaching a junction in the left lane of a dual carriageway at 70mph would be especially unwise to charge through if a vehicle in the right lane were showing brake lights and a left indicator. Being in the right and avoiding crashes are not always the same thing!

However (for the motorist in our situation):

drossall wrote:It's pretty much the same, in terms of road markings, as turning left when starting in the right-hand lane of a dual carriageway. Say you suddenly decided to change route and turn left, because the road ahead was jammed - before entering the left lane, you'd make jolly sure that it was clear and that nothing was coming up behind.

I'm actually surprised that I can't find more forceful statements in the HC about not changing lanes when the other is occupied. It's such an obvious no-no.

Rule 167 is, I believe, mainly aimed at single lanes and overtaking to the right, which is not the situation here. As I said, there are accidents that either party can avoid. In my assessment, in a single lane, if a car overtook a bike, or vice versa (why would it be different?), at a junction, and the vehicle overtaken suddenly turned right, 167 would only be one of the relevant rules, and both parties might be held at fault. One would be wrong for not looking or signalling adequately, and the other for overtaking inappropriately.

With a single lane in each direction, I said that:

drossall wrote:Normally, cyclists occupy the same traffic lane as motor vehicles, and so should not move left of a left-turning vehicle. Again, this is no different from cars, though they normally are too wide to try - but imagine that you were slow in turning left at a junction and a driver tried to nip past on your left to get ahead - it must have happened somewhere! In that case, the driver to your left would be in the wrong. Generally speaking, then, there's no real difference between cars and bikes - both are vehicles, and the rules of conduct for each, and towards each, are the same.

Incidentally, no-one practises the obvious meaning of rule 167, as far as I can see. Do not overtake at or near side turnings, whether they are to the left or the right, even if no vehicle appears to be turning.

Thanks for the feedback all, just sit and let them pass on the inside now, unless a cyclist is a good way back and making the left turn does'nt cause either party grief.With regard the stickers appearing on Openreach vans, mine has'nt got one and has just been through the workshop, so they are'nt being put on there and I am yet to see one.

They agreed a wording and then went off and made up their own (plainly aggressive) wording without asking anyone? I never understand why they do that sort of thing. It's like those 'consultations' which mean 'we tell you what we have already decided, and if you object to anything we say it's too late to change it and grumble that you're always moaning about what we do'.

I haven't seen this thread before so apologies if this has been said before but I don't have time to read through 5 pages of comment. I drive a motorhome/camper van, whatever you want to call it and live in a single track Devon lane. Not ideal roads for it but I can reach main roads quite quickly.

The problems come if I meet another vehicle and need to reverse, especially when the passing place is just behind me. The problem is the cyclist a few yards behind me. It hasn't happened often but enough times, as a cyclist myself, to be be hypersensitive to seeing cyclists following me and knowing that they don't magically vanish, they just get so close I can't see them.

So I need a sign which says "Unlike you I don't have X-Ray vision, so stay back"

And yes, before anyone points it out, I will pull over if the cyclists want to overtake.

There is an old sign, still often seen which says if you can't see my wing mirrors I can't see you.

It is still very true. Reversing cameras and the like are useful but nothing beats real eye to eye contact.

BeeKeeper wrote:The problems come if I meet another vehicle and need to reverse, especially when the passing place is just behind me. The problem is the cyclist a few yards behind me. It hasn't happened often but enough times, as a cyclist myself, to be be hypersensitive to seeing cyclists following me and knowing that they don't magically vanish, they just get so close I can't see them.

Certainly cyclists should not follow anything so close that they can't be seen in one's mirrors - and for any kind of vehicle without an interior mirror that's particularly important. A general rule - if you can't see the driver's face in their mirror, they can't see you.

Having properly functioning reversing lights is also very important, especially in this type of vehicle. So many lower-cost cars are fitted with only one light: I think there should be two minimum - and how do you test them (especially if you're driving alone)? At least that gives the cyclist a chance. Good practice perhaps to pause a few seconds, after engaging reverse, before letting in the clutch.

But ought there not to be a rule, the vehicle which can reverse more easily should be the one to reverse? I.e. usually the car. I don't often have to put this to the test, not where I live, but in the Highlands last week, I certainly had to do the reversing when my car came face-to-face with a large lorry! Even if he'd been closer to a passing place than I was, I wasn't about to quibble!

It's just common sense - although sometimes the skill/confidence of the driver comes into play as well.

I have been driving along a single track lane towing a horsebox, and come face to face with a driver who looked terrified at the prospect of reversing. I just reversed the hundred yards or so to the previous passing place, because I'm fairly happy to reverse even with a trailer.

A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way.No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.A good pun is it's own reword

There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.